


Embers

by sidebyside_archivist



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-01
Updated: 2003-04-01
Packaged: 2020-06-26 20:44:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19776073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidebyside_archivist/pseuds/sidebyside_archivist
Summary: Spock is at Gol. Kirk is at loose ends.





	Embers

**Author's Note:**

> Note from LadyKardasi and Sahviere, the archivists: this story was originally archived at [Side by Side](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Side_by_Side_\(Star_Trek:_TOS_zine\)) and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2019. We tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Side by Side’s collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sidebyside/profile).
> 
> Author's Note:  
> Thanks to: my beta and all-around K/S cheerleader, Farfalla

_Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum:_  
_in vanum laboraverunt qui aedificant eam._  
 _Nisi Dominus custodierit civitatem:_  
 _frustra vigilat qui custodit eam._

_Vanum est vobis ante lucem surgere:_   
_surgite postquam sederitis_   
_qui manducatis panem doloris._

Handel, Carmelite Vespers (1707) - Psalm IV: Nisi Dominus  
<mumbles -- yes, the text comes from the vulgate -- I mean the music and the words>

I caught a glimpse of him on Market Street, amidst the morning crowd. Suddenly I was moving towards him, only to realize that the apparition was only a human businessman on his way to work: not Spock. It's funny how your mind plays tricks on you.

. . .

I learned long ago that the best friend a man can have is silence. There is no condemnation or empty praise, no meaningless social niceties and insincere expressions of sympathy. He always hated those the most, you know. It was not, as some said, out of a contempt for human courtesy; indeed, he was the most courteous being I have ever known. Rather, it was the honesty of his heart which alienated him from the social niceties human society demands.

It's difficult sometimes, living without him. It is not so much that I think of him, but that he has so altered my thought processes and consciousness that I cannot help but find myself seeing the world through his eyes. Indeed, I can barely remember the person I was before I met him: in the crucible of our friendship I became someone different--something better, I am certain, that that man, whoever he was, who bore my name before.

At times I comfort myself with the thought that I am he and he is I, for as surely as the water I drink contains the very piss of Caesar, so we ingested enough of each other's fluids that our separate flesh did indeed become one.

We even shared our blood; a gruesome thing to recall. It was a desperate situation, and we were trying to ensure our mutual survival. I was thirsty and I needed water, so he cut into his skin where the water rushed out, tangy with blood. I drank, my lips closed over his skin as if loving it, and perhaps I was, in the most primal way possible. Then, judging, he said, my intake of copper salts to be at the acceptable limit, he staunched the flow and impatiently bound the wound. And so we both survived the mission.

We were a team, and we were more than a team.

I do not work in teams any longer. Rather, I work almost entirely alone. Silence has become my blood brother and companion. Often I do not go to the office at all, where I am barricaded behind a heavy oak desk, opaque doors and secretary, but do my work at home. At times, of course, I must go among my peers and play politics. It is at those times that I seem to stand outside myself. Who is this man who shmoozes with admirals and negotiates with department chiefs? Perhaps he is the man I parted ways with years ago. Now there was a man who knew how to get ahead, a man who would become the youngest captain in the fleet. How ironic to discover that he is only an empty mask, a thin shadow of a person.

I could, of course, work with a team. I was given the budget to put together a fine department, but the funds have gone unspent. The spirit to work with others has utterly gone out of me. Why manage the labor of others when I can do it all better and more easily myself? So I brought in two officers to do outreach and supervision, while I spend my days ensconced in a nest of efficiency reports and budget figures. Some say numbers are cold, but it is people who are cold; numbers are familiar and comforting, like old friends.

It's the strangest things that get to you, I think. I can look back fondly at his enthusiasm for science; to recall his habit of engaging in fruitless arguments with Chekov or McCoy, knowing full well that they were goading him, yet doggedly holding out to the end for the sheer hell of it, evokes no particular emotion in me. But to remember his kindness . . . this, this is what puts me on the brink of tears. And, like a Vulcan struggling to understand human emotion, I find myself asking, why? Why does a good thing, in the past, provoke such pain?

I cannot answer this question. If I could, perhaps I could also puzzle out why leftover pieces from our emotional life suddenly turn up and, for a moment, consume me, as when one stirs the ashes of a dead campfire, only to find that some embers still burn.

_From the private journal of Admiral Kirk_ _San Francisco, March 2272_


End file.
